


I Feel Again

by intrajanelle



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild torture, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-14
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 09:56:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1465120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intrajanelle/pseuds/intrajanelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times someone else saves McCoy, but it turns out Jim was saving him all along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Feel Again

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I wrote a 24 page fanfic, I have finals. Why does McKirk happen to good people.
> 
> Additional warnings in the end note, because they're vaguely spoiler-y.

“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”

 

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

(1)

 

McCoy shouldn’t even be here.

 

Not in space, not on the Enterprise, and _not_ on this mission, that’s for goddamned sure. He’s a modest southern doctor. And yet here he is, trudging through two feet of snow and counting, in nothing but his thin blue regulation shirt and slacks. His shoes are filled with ice and he can’t feel anything anymore. Not even the tip of his nose.

 

He doesn’t even have time to wonder when his life turned out this wrong, he’s so busy trying to find shelter.

 

The storm had rolled in without any warning. One moment it had been sunny, muggy and tropical, and McCoy had been helping Hikaru collect plant samples for potentially undiscovered medicinal herbs. The next a herd of clouds had rolled in front of the sun and begun dumping thick, wet heaps of snow on their away team. They’d lost contact with the Enterprise in the cloud cover, Hikaru had lost his balance on a cliff and McCoy had pushed him out of the way.

 

The next thing he knew, he was barreling headfirst down a steep hill, landing in a pile at the bottom and quickly realizing that no one was coming after him. Now, it was cold and it was almost dark and McCoy needed shelter more than anything. Because even if the storm did blow over, and the Enterprise did lock onto their signatures, McCoy wouldn’t be doing anyone any good if he had been reduced to a popsicle by the time they beamed him out.

 

And besides, he was from Georgia, and, more recently, southern California, the coldest weather he was used to were a few damp months around wintertime. He was most certainly not prepared to stand in buckets of icy slush. That being said, by the time McCoy found an outcropping that had mostly survived the blizzard unscathed he was frozen from the tips of his ears to what he thought were his toes, but, since he couldn’t actually feel them, may just have been the stubs where his toes once resided before they up and froze off.

 

The first thing he did was close his fingers around his communicator. Which was a feat, considering he couldn’t even feel his fingers. He dragged it to his lips and sent out an SOS.

 

“McCoy to Enterprise,” he repeated several times, before he sighed and said, “McCoy to Kirk, come in Kirk,” in a whisper.

 

He wasn’t surprised the comm remained dead or that the wind howled louder than the static from the dead connection.

 

He _was_ surprised when a figure emerged from the white curtain of snow surrounding his tiny hideaway, even more surprised when that figure turned out to be Spock.

 

The Vulcan was clad in a long, thick, warm-looking coat, with boots and mittens. He pulled the hood down when he crouched next to McCoy and pressed two fingers to the pulse point on McCoy’s neck.

 

McCoy hadn’t even considered that he must look like a corpse where he was sprawled on the dirt, all pale and still. He blinked up at Spock, making a point to keep his eyes wide and focused.

 

“I’m fine, Spock. Where’s the rest of the away team?” McCoy asked, trying to push himself into a sitting position.

 

Spock locked a hand on his shoulder and helped him up, and while McCoy would normally be averse to the assistance he found that at the moment he cared about as much as he could feel his face, which was not at all.

 

“They are safe,” Spock assured him. “It would have been illogical for the entire team to leave the area where we last had contact with the Enterprise, so I volunteered to find you. We were prepared for the weather to change, although not quite so abruptly. If you had not been separated from the group we would have been able to dress you accordingly.”

 

It was then that McCoy noticed Spock was unwinding a coat identical to the one he was wearing from his waist. When Spock pulled McCoy forward to wrap the coat around him McCoy hissed.

 

“Bless your pointed ears, Spock, and don’t tell Jim I said that,” McCoy said as he burrowed into the coat. After a moment Spock zipped the coat to McCoy’s chin and McCoy wrapped stiff arms around himself in an effort to warm his aching, icy appendages. “Goddamn, that feels better.”

 

“I would attempt to share my body heat to help you ward off frostbite, Doctor, but Vulcans have at a lower body temperature than humans. I’m afraid I would only—“

 

“I understand Spock, cuddling is not the answer,” McCoy said, shifting to look up at the Vulcans wide eyes. “I’ll be fine. The Enterprise will be here soon.”

 

“Indeed, I am sure the Captain is quite worried.”

 

“I’m surprised he hasn’t sent the Enterprise barreling through the damn clouds to reach us.”

 

“There are indigenous life forms on this planet that have not discovered primitive technology yet. That would be in direct violation of the—“

 

“Prime Directive. Yes, Spock, I know. I was being sarcastic.”

 

It was another few, tense minutes before Spock spoke up again. During which, McCoy wondered alternately what Jim was doing at the moment and if he would ever feel his feet again.

 

“Doctor?” Spock asked, his voice pitched lower than McCoy had ever heard it.

 

McCoy tried to answer, really, his jaw fell open and everything, but all that came out was a vague hiss. He turned his head to the side and cracked his eyes.

 

Spock looked worried, which was odd considering Vulcan’s couldn’t feel.

 

“Doctor, you’ve stopping shivering. I do not think it’s advisable for you to go to sleep,” Spock said, placing a hand on McCoy’s shoulder.

 

“I’m the doctor here, Spock,” McCoy drawled, “and I’m tired.”

 

 _Don’t go to sleep_ , a voice echoed in the back of his head. _Don’t you dare go to sleep Bones_.

 

McCoy had a second to contemplate how odd it was that his conscience sounded an awful lot like Jim, before his thoughts fizzled into white static.

 

+

 

“Bones? Are you with me?”

 

McCoy groaned. “No. Lemme sleep.”

 

Someone chuckled, and McCoy knew it had to be Jim. No one else would be standing over him, amused, while his entire body was one giant ache.

 

“You’ve had a lot of sleep, Bones. C’mon, open those big hazel eyes for me,” Jim said.

 

And someone was patting his hair down over his forehead and it felt kinda nice and McCoy had about half a second to wonder at the fact that Jim knew what color his eyes were before his eyelids were cracking open to bright white light, and now everything, everything down to his corneas, was throbbing with pain. He closed his eyes as quick as he’d opened them and groaned for what felt like the umpteenth time, while Jim laughed.

 

“There we go,” Jim said, poking his cheek. “Wake up, Bones.”

 

By the time McCoy dragged his eyes open, Jim wasn’t smiling.

 

“You scared the shit out of me,” Jim said.

 

He was wearing his uniform and sitting in a chair by McCoy’s biobed.

 

Outside the curtain that was pulled tight around McCoy’s bed, the sickbay was quiet, so McCoy assumed he was the only one injured this time around. And thank god Jim hadn’t come down with them, or he’d probably have ended up with frostbite on top of blood loss on top of whatever other medical emergency he could think up in a blizzard, and McCoy wouldn’t have been able to treat him. And that thought was more painful than the cold, sluggish blood, drifting through his veins.

 

McCoy tilted his head up at Jim. “Yeah, well, you could’ve fooled me.”

 

Jim smiled, he now had his arms folded beside McCoy, head settled on his hands. He looked more comfortable in that position than he ever had in a biobed when it was he who was sick.

 

“How long I been out?” McCoy murmured.

 

“Three days,” Jim said, casually, like he meant three hours.

 

McCoy lurched forward but Jim placed a hand on his chest and pushed him down so he was lying flat on his back.

 

“Three days?” McCoy hissed. “What about the others? Did Hikaru hold onto those plant samples? We were meant to ship them back to Starfleet Medical—“

 

“Everyone’s fine. Your plants are fine,” Jim said. He hadn’t moved his hand from McCoy’s chest. “Just rest, Bones, okay? It was bad. You were— It was bad.”

 

“Okay,” McCoy’s said, but only because he’d never seen that look on Jim’s face before.

 

He looked lost.

 

And then his face broke into a smile and he leaned forward conspiratorially. “After you passed out, Spock gave you a piggy back ride.”

 

“He did not!” McCoy said, face flushing.

 

“He did,” Jim said. “Carried you right up a cliff. Hikaru sent me pictures. Should I just call you Princess Buttercup from now on?”

 

“Dammit Jim! You are the only person in the galaxy who still watches that ancient movie!”

 

“No he isn’t,” Chapel chimed from the other side of the curtain.

 

Jim grinned his crooked grin and McCoy settled into his biobed. It looked like he was in for a long stay in medical.

 

(2)

 

McCoy doesn’t understand why they’re even interacting with a race of aliens who think Healers are descended from their-version of Satan and need to be burned at the stake. It all seems rather medieval in his opinion, and not at all like a society the Federation should be affiliated with. And its probably a good thing these particular aliens, who are tall and blue and humanoid and _strong_ , separated Jim and Spock from the rest of them at the beginning of this whole fiasco. Because while McCoy would like to determine with his own eyes that Jim hasn’t been injured, it’s a good thing he isn’t here for this.

 

Knowing Jim, he’d insist he was a Healer too, just for the sake of being tied up to a stake right beside McCoy in the center of this stupid village while these damn aliens jeered at him.

 

And even if all Jim did was watch, watching this was difficult. It was hard enough having Uhura and Pavel there, knowing the guilt they would feel later, after McCoy was a pile of ash.

 

The two were currently deep in conversation with the Chief of the village. Or, Uhura was. Didn’t matter if the Federation only had half this race’s language translated, Uhura filled most of the verbal barriers with gestures and was currently waving her arms in a wide, circular pattern. Pavel was just staring at McCoy, eyes narrowed and worried.

 

The Chief abruptly looked up from his conversation with Uhura and shouted at the two guards carrying torches. The guards started to approach McCoy, holding their torches out flames first, as if they meant to light McCoy on fire from his soles of his feet.

 

McCoy struggled weakly but he was trussed to the stake pretty good, hands and legs circled with a thick-knotted rope. That, and his head was pounding from where one of the guards had slapped him to get him to stand still earlier. It pounded so loud that McCoy only half heard Uhura when she cut through the jubilation of the crowd with a single foreign word.

 

The guards stopped.

 

The crowd turned to look at her and Pavel.

 

McCoy cringed, mouthed “No.”

 

Pavel seemed to understand his weak attempt at a protest and merely nodded, as if to say “It’s cool, we got this.”

 

With a clipped, hard tone, unlike anything McCoy had ever heard Uhura use before, she recaptured the Chief’s attention.

 

Another minute and the Chief was nodding, smiling, or, doing what passed in his race for a smile, which was to bare all ten rows of his thin, sharp teeth.

 

He said something to the guards and this time, instead of trying to turn McCoy into the galaxy’s largest marshmallow, they put out their torches and took long knives out of their belts. McCoy sighed, at least bleeding to death would be quicker.

 

But before McCoy could even really contemplate death, before he got beyond regretting never getting to say goodbye to his daughter and never telling Jim, well, telling Jim _everything_ , the guards had cut the ropes from around his arms and his legs and he’d collapsed in a shivering heap at the bottom of the stake.

 

Uhura rushed to him and helped him to his feet, somehow holding him up entirely on her own until Pavel arrived at his other side. After that, Uhura’s voice, strong and firm even while using a language she didn’t completely understand, almost lulled him to sleep.

 

+

 

He was lucky he didn’t fall asleep, because it meant he got to see Jim’s face when they were reunited.

 

After more finagling via Uhura, the Chief allowed Spock and Jim to come sit with them while they all waited for the Enterprise to send a shuttle to fetch them back from this loony planet. McCoy and his group waited for Spock and Jim in a tent at the edge of the village.

 

McCoy was sprawled on a cot the Chief had provided at Uhura’s insistence when Jim came barreling through the tent flaps, almost startling Pavel off his feet.

 

Uhura stood, said, “Captain, he’s—“

 

But Jim ignored her. His face was blank but his eyes automatically found McCoy’s and he strode toward him with more single-minded focus than McCoy had seen him exert since Khan had attacked nearly two years ago. It stunned McCoy in a way the threat of burning alive hadn’t.

 

“Are you hurt?” Jim asked, already scanning McCoy as he crouched beside the cot.

 

“I’m fine,” McCoy said, pushing himself to his elbows.

 

Jim’s eyes wrinkled in concern but McCoy waved him off.

 

“ _I’m fine_ ,” he insisted.

 

“Bones, you—“ Jim said, but seemed to think better of whatever he’d been about to say. Instead he let his eyes drift to McCoy’s wrists, where the rope had chaffed McCoy’s skin. Without a second thought he grabbed McCoy’s hands in his and began smoothing his thumbs over the long, red abrasions. “They said they’d killed you.”

 

“And you believed them?” McCoy scoffed,

 

Jim’s head drooped. “No,” he said, “Nearly,” and then, on a whisper, “I would’ve felt it.”

 

McCoy wasn’t even sure he’d heard Jim right, so he let it go. He looked past Jim’s shoulder and noticed that Spock had entered the tent. He stood beside Uhura with his hands folded behind his back, but he looked like if he was a little less Vulcan and they were a lot more alone he would have wrapped his arms around Uhura’s waist and pressed his face into her hair.

 

A testament to the fact that it had been a stressful day for everyone was when Spock actually did raise a hand, place it on Uhura’s shoulder, and squeeze.

 

McCoy looked away, feeling like he was intruding somehow. Instead he focused on Jim’s face as it hovered over his own arms. The set of Jim’s shoulders was tight, stressed, like he was McCoy’s personal shield from the entirety of this crazy planet.

 

McCoy wasn’t normally so willing to allow Jim to needlessly protect him but he was also tired and sore from the beating he’d taken, not to mention from being tied to a stake for almost an hour. He fell asleep to Jim running his hands over McCoy’s arms, and he might have thought he felt his captain’s fingers linger on his hair, but, again, it had been a pretty stressful day. He was probably just imagining things.

 

(3) 

 

The day had started, as most days do, with routine. McCoy had gotten up, gotten dressed, gone to the canteen where he’d eaten his oatmeal while Jim scarfed down eggs and bacon. He’d bitched at Jim about eating unhealthy, Jim had bitched back about being young and virile and in need of adequate sustenance. Then Jim had slapped his shoulder and McCoy had been left to finish his breakfast in relative silence.

 

When he’d gotten to sickbay, that’s when things took a turn for the weird. First of all, there were so many ensigns milling on deck 6, where McCoy normally did his work, that he was forced to take refuge on deck 8. Second of all, on quiet deck 8 was Scotty. And Scotty was never in medical willingly.

 

Keenser sat in a chair beside the biobed Chapel had laid Scotty.

 

Scotty, uncharacteristically quiet, lay with his arms crossed while, for the first time since McCoy had met the pair, Keenser did the talking for him.

 

Keenser explained in soft, short sentences, that Scotty, being the brazen mechanic he was, had burned nearly his entire left arm off early that morning and had to be dragged to medical under threat of a week of medical leave if he wasn’t looked at.

 

Before Keenser was even done explaining McCoy was running his tricorder over Scotty’s injured arm that, now that he was paying attention, was tucked protectively close to his side.

 

“Yup,” McCoy said after a minute. “Third degree burns. You’re lucky Keenser brought you in, Mr. Scott. Aren’t you in pain?”

 

Scotty shook his head and looked up at McCoy for the first time since McCoy had entered the room. His eyes were glassy and wide.

 

“I’ve got a high tolerance for pain,” Scotty said on the end of cough.

 

McCoy rolled his eyes. Yeah, right. Not like McCoy wasn’t holding a tricorder or anything. He didn’t need Scotty’s word for it to read that the mechanic’s blood alcohol content levels were through the roof.

 

McCoy had almost perfected a long, detailed diatribe about why Scotty should not, in the future, be so afraid of visiting medical that he substituted Bourbon for pain medication, when the ship lurched.

 

“Is someone blowing holes in ma girl?” Scotty nearly yelled, but then he looked back at McCoy rather sheepishly and amended his statement. “I mean. Is someone firing at us Doctor?”

 

“Don’t know,” McCoy said, distracted as he activated the straps on Scott’s biobed so the man wouldn’t go hurtling off the side if the ship rocked again. “Chapel! Get Mr. Scott started on the dermal regenerator! Keenser,” McCoy said, turning to the mechanic, “I suggest getting down to the engine room. I’m going up to the bridge to see why our Captain has us in another firefight.”

 

It took McCoy nearly a minute to get to turbolift 1, even though it was right beside deck 8, and all because the ship lurched three more times on his way there. It took all of McCoy’s self-control to keep himself from hurling all over the white paneled flooring, and even more self-control on top of that to make himself forget that he was in a tiny tin can floating in the ether that could collapse in on itself and crush, freeze or asphyxiate him at a moments notice.

 

Once inside turbolift 1, McCoy hit the button for the bridge, waited patiently for the doors to close and nearly cried when the lights went out. He waited a minute but the turbolift doors remained stubbornly shut, the power remained off, and when he tried to reach the bridge via comm all he got was static.

 

Eventually he slid to the floor, bunched his arms over his head and started doing that breathing thing Jim taught him to do back at the Academy. The “in one count, out three counts” technique that got him through his flight tests on the first try. He was a little rusty at the whole relaxation thing but he managed to calm himself down enough to ignore the way the ship was rocking back and forth in the blackness of space, bouncing between stars like he was inside a pinball. He ignored it so well that he barely noticed when the ship stopped rocking until he heard the telltale banging on the other side of the turbolift doors and the loud, firm voice that could only belong to Jim Kirk.

 

Jim seemed to be tempered by whatever it was Scotty was saying because he quieted, and it _was_ Scotty speaking, because McCoy would recognize that drawl anywhere.

 

McCoy had just pulled himself to his feet when the turbolift lights flickered on and the doors whooshed open like they were glad to be apart.

 

On the other side of them, staring at McCoy like he was seeing a ghost, was Jim, hands in fists at his sides. Before McCoy could even get a word in Jim had him in a tight hug, arms winding around his shoulders, hands patting at his back as if to check that he was solid.

 

Over Jim’s shoulder McCoy could see Scotty, holding the guts of the turbolift’s control panel in one hand. He was saying, “I told ya he wasn’t on deck 6. Ya never listen to me.”

 

“Anyone want to tell me what’s going on?” McCoy said when Jim pulled away.

 

And by pulled away, he meant that Jim was still clasping his shoulders, still keeping little to no distance between them as if he would need to grab McCoy at a moment’s notice.

 

“What’s up with the Enterprise?” McCoy asked. “Jim?”

 

“Rogue Klingon ship. The ship’s—we’re headed to space dock now,” Jim said, leading McCoy and Scotty back down to the sickbay on deck 8 by a hand on McCoy’s wrist.

 

And McCoy knew exactly how bad a state the Enterprise was in by Jim’s lack of description. He almost ran to medical but Jim stopped him just outside the doors, wouldn’t meet McCoy’s eyes as he said, “Comms are still down, we don’t have a location or data for any crew members currently aboard, and deck 6 is gone. We don’t even know how many casualties there are.”

 

“Jesus,” McCoy whispered.

 

But he still didn’t get it. Still didn’t get why Jim hadn’t let go of him since they’d been reunited. He wiggled out of Jim’s grasp, and instead of thinking of the implications of the bereft look on Jim’s face, he plunged into sickbay and began triaging patients.

 

Scotty went obediently back to his biobed only after Chapel scolded him for leaving in the middle of his session with the dermal regenerator. Chapel proceeded to take Scotty’s while McCoy took care of an ensign with a concussion. He didn’t notice the look of relief that spread over Chapel’s face at the sight of him.

 

When McCoy finished treating all his patients three hours later, he turned to find Jim still in sickbay, sitting by the doors, staring at him.

 

“Aren’t you supposed to be—” McCoy gestured toward the ceiling. “Captaining? You aren’t hurt are you?”

 

He was halfway to Jim with a tricorder when Jim shook his head.

 

“Spock’s acting Captain right now,” Jim said, standing, hands in his pockets, all casual, like he wasn’t basically saying that his second-in-command was now very much in command, something that normally would have reduced him to his most raging, irrational state.

 

“What did you do?” McCoy asked, eyes narrowing, trying to approach this gently lest he invoke all of Jim’s fury.

 

Jim just smiled. “I’ve been emotionally compromised,” he said, and then spun on his heel, leaving Medical, leaving a baffled McCoy standing with his tricorder pointed at empty air.

 

(4)

 

Jim was distracting him.

 

That was McCoy’s excuse for why he consumed an extremely poisonous plant. Jim was fucking distracting him. Granted, he wasn’t distracting him in a way he normally distracted him. He wasn’t ruffling McCoy’s hair, or slapping his shoulder, or chattering aimlessly about warp equations that were so over McCoy’s head they were practically white noise. No. He was refusing to kneel.

 

They were on an exploratory mission of an unknown moon, searching for plants for Hikaru’s growing collection, plants that grow _on the ground_ , and Jim was refusing to kneel. He said something about getting dirt on his brand new uniform pants, like he ever gave a crap about getting dirt on anything, ever. So instead of kneeling he was leaning over to look at things, leaving his dimpled ass thrust in the air.

 

And McCoy felt pretty guilty considering the fact that he was in love with the bastard, and Jim had no idea. It meant that Jim’s vulnerable ass was free to ogle without Jim even suspecting that he was doing any ogling, something that left McCoy feeling equal parts shamed and turned on.

 

 And McCoy was so distraught over the problem that was Jim Kirk’s jutted ass that he confused the mint leaf he’d been about to eat with a small yellow flower he’d been inspecting. The irony was that he didn’t even notice what was wrong, just thought, maybe, mint leaves were tasteless on this moon, and because he was kneeling he didn’t realize how nauseous he was until he went to stand and promptly landed on his own ass.

 

Jim was there in an instant, kneeling right by his side, dirt getting all over his stupid uniform pants. He didn’t even seem to notice, just tightened his hand on McCoy’s arm and tried to get him to stand.

 

“What’s wrong, Bones? You slip?” Jim asked, frowning when McCoy refused to move his legs.

 

More like, McCoy’s legs refused to move for him. He felt like he had a fever but his skin wasn’t the least bit sweaty. He was dry and achy and his head was spinning. He reached for his tricorder but his arms weren’t listening to him. He let Jim prop him up and murmured, “Tricorder?”

 

Jim nodded and reached for it but the screen was smashed via McCoy’s spectacular fall. He’d landed on his own medical equipment, just bloody great.

 

“Bones?” Jim said, shaking McCoy when his eyes started to slip shut. “Bones, what’s happening?”

 

When McCoy didn’t respond Jim reached for his comm, “Kirk to Enterprise, get us—“

 

“We do not have time, Keptin,” Pavel said, suddenly there, and in the disarray of Jim’s ass and the simultaneous anarchy of all his body parts McCoy had forgot Pavel was even with them. He startled when Pavel pressed a finger to McCoy’s arm and raised a small yellow flower in his gloved hand. “Doctor, did you eat this?”

 

McCoy shook his head.

 

“Is it possible you accidentally consumed it?” Pavel said, slow and even, calm, like McCoy wasn’t quite possibly dying in Jim’s lap.

 

McCoy nodded and then groaned as he started trembling.

 

“What is it?” Jim said, and then, “What is that?”

 

“It looks like, what we call on Earth, aconite. It grows wild in Russia,” Pavel said, gesturing for Jim to prop McCoy into a sitting position. He held a tube of something that smelled bitter and sharp under McCoy’s nose. “He needs to vomit.”

 

“What—“

 

“That’s not gonna be a problem,” McCoy said, his face suddenly green.

 

Jim turned him on his side just as everything McCoy had eaten and then some came right up his throat. And even after it seemed he’d puked everything he possibly could, including the remnants of small, yellow flower petals, he kept excreting yellow bile until he could hardly feel his arms anymore.

 

His eyes slipped shut to Jim wrapping his hands around his biceps and pulling him against a warm chest, and then everything else fell away.

 

+

 

“You’ve gotta stop doing this to me, Bones,” Jim said when he woke up.

 

They were in medical, McCoy was on a biobed, Jim was sitting beside him in a worn chair. Same shit, different day.

 

“They pumped your stomach,” Jim said as he lifted a glass of water to McCoy’s chapped lips. He arranged to straw so that McCoy could take a few hesitant sips and then took the glass back. “They said to start you slow,” he supplied when McCoy protested. “How do you feel?”

 

“Like I can’t believe I was done in by a Daffodil,” McCoy said and winced, his voice sounded wrecked to his own ears and probably to Jim’s too considering how he winced the moment McCoy started talking.

 

“You should rest some more,” Jim said, patting McCoy’s arm. “I’ll—I’ll be right here.”

 

McCoy wanted to protest. He wanted to stay awake. He needed to ask Jim something, _tell_ Jim something, but he couldn’t remember what and the lights were already spinning as his head fell back on his pillow. He fell asleep to Jim’s strong fingers closing around his wrist.

 

(5)

 

At first, McCoy blamed the inventory check. Inventory checks were always tedious and lasted days at a time. He was halfway through inspecting all four thousand of the hypos they had in stock in the cargo bay when the first wave of dizziness hit.

 

Chapel saw him stumble, saw him place a hand on the wall to balance himself, and came to him immediately.

 

“Doctor?” she asked, holding him up. She was already bringing her tricorder out but McCoy waved her away.

 

“Probably just tired, we’ve been at this for hours,” McCoy grumbled. He pulled away from her and picked up the PADD he’d dropped.

 

“You should go lie down,” Chapel said, scanning him even as he protested. She was just waving the tricorder over his chest when nausea swept over him, bringing him to his knees, so he missed the look of horror that passed over Chapel’s face when she read his diagnosis.

 

A second later Chapel and a hastily assembled ensign were dragging him back to sickbay by his armpits. Chapel was pressing a hypo to his neck and he was swimming in the sudden relief that washed over him as if his insides had been rinsed with lukewarm water.

 

When he looked up at Chapel to ask what was wrong, her jaw was set in a thin line, something it only ever did when she was assisting in an hour-long surgery or prepping a body for autopsy.

 

“Do I even want to ask?” McCoy said, soft.

 

Chapel sighed, looked down at him from where she’d been hastily putting together a patient chart, _his_ patient chart from the looks of it, and shook her head.

 

“We should do some blood tests, these damn tricorders aren’t always accurate—“

 

“They are accurate. As our Vulcan First Officer would say: They’re right 99.97% of the time, it would be illogical to completely discount them. And you just swore, Christine, which is making me mighty curious as to what’s going on,” McCoy said, reaching for his patient chart.

 

Chapel pulled it out of his reach and then sighed as he opened his mouth to remind her who was CMO here. Before he could get a word out, she handed it to him without protest.

 

And no, McCoy had not recently broken a mirror, walked under a ladder, strut in the path of a black cat or any of that other superstitious nonsense that would land him with luck _this_ bad. He read over his chart once, twice, twice and a half, before he sighed and sat up in bed.

 

“And where do you think you’re going?” Chapel asked as he threw his legs over the side and went to stand.

 

“Work,” McCoy said, but the moment he got his legs under him he wobbled and Chapel began shaking her head in earnest.

 

“I’m checking you in as a patient, this is serious McCoy, you could—“

 

“I know,” McCoy said. “Just— If you check me in Jim will find out. I should tell him myself.”

 

Chapel stared at him for another moment and then nodded. “Okay. I’ll hold off on the patient thing if you lie down for a bit. You need—you need rest, and a lot of it.”

 

“I know,” McCoy said, shifting himself back onto the biobed and lying down. “I know.”

 

He knew just how serious this all was. He’d treated people in the position he was in, watched them die slow, painful deaths, trapped in their own failing bodies. He knew exactly what was going to happen to him, how much time he had left, who he should be contacting about his will, the video he should be making for Joanna, the talk he should be having with Jim.

 

But he was so tired. His eyes slid shut before he could even think about sleep and then he was gone.

 

He woke what felt like minutes later to a hand on his cheek. The hand shifted to his arm as he stirred.

 

When he opened his eyes Jim was hovering over him, half a smile on his face in a way that let McCoy know he was worried.

 

“I couldn’t find you at dinner,” he said. “Chapel said you’d be in here. Are you okay?”

 

Christine, of course, that traitor. McCoy groaned and rolled over, pushed himself up so he was sitting. He felt dizzy but that was normal considering he’d slept half the day away.

 

Jim took a step back and stared at him, like he was trying to piece something together.

 

“You don’t look so good, Bones. And you’ve been real tired lately. You getting old or what?” Jim said, the joke falling flat on his lips.

 

McCoy swallowed thickly. He couldn’t meet Jim’s eyes. Instead he tossed his legs over the side of the biobed and gripped the sheets to hold himself steady.

 

“Jim—“ McCoy said.

 

“It’s—” Jim said at the same time.

 

When McCoy looked up at Jim he gulped and then fell into a nearby chair. He found himself suddenly at a loss for anything he was about to say in light of the fact that Jim was as white as a sheet, whiter than he’d been when half his blood was pooled on the floor last month, after that away mission gone wrong.

 

“Jim, what is it?” McCoy asked.

 

Jim scrubbed a hand through his hair and finally, finally, looked up at him.

 

“You—” Jim said, “you have xenopolycythemia don’t you?”

 

McCoy was silent, gaping. His hands tightened around the sheets until his knuckles stood out against his pale skin.

 

“Christine,” McCoy said, licking his lips. “Christine told you didn’t she? Damn that woman, I _told_ her—“

 

“It wasn’t—” Jim interrupted, and then running his hands through his hair again he said, “It wasn’t her okay?” and his voice broke on the last syllable. Everything about Jim was shrill, from the tight set of his shoulders, to the wrinkles between his eyes, to the way he suddenly stood and began pacing the room.

 

“You remember the mind meld I had with Elder Spock right? Back before the Narada? When Spock stranded me on Delta Vega?” Jim asked, but he didn’t wait for McCoy to respond before he plowed onward. “There were a lot of memories he shared with me then. Not all of them I understood at the time. One of them was of you, the other you, in that other universe. You had xenopolycythemia there too, and you almost died, but there was a cure.”

 

McCoy tried to stop him, said, “Jim—“

 

But Kirk was on a roll. He stopped at the end of the biobed and met McCoy’s eyes. “I was afraid— I, um, I looked into the cure just in case this happened,” he paused, made sure McCoy was watching him. “Sulu’s been working on it, Bones. You aren’t going to die.”

 

“Jim,” McCoy said, slow. “You need to find a new CMO.”

 

Anger flashed in Jim’s eyes. “Did you hear a single thing I just—“

 

“I’m not fit for duty,” McCoy said, “and I’m dying.”

 

Jim straightened, hands clenched at his sides.

 

“I caught it too late, kid. I should have— I’m sorry.”

 

“Sulu said just another month, maybe two—“

 

“It’s too late, Jim,” McCoy snapped.

 

He could feel his cheeks heating, could feel the unnatural flush of a fever that wasn’t there. Xenopolycythemia didn’t kill with a fever. It slowly replaced all its hosts’ blood cells with those of the red persuasion in order to choke out all the others. It was a drawn out, damn painful way to go, but McCoy hadn’t really expected any different to begin with.

 

“How long?” Jim asked.

 

“I don’t think—“

 

“ _How long_?” Jim repeated, an edge to his voice that he usually reserved for Klingons or cocky Admirals.

 

“A few weeks,” McCoy said, staring at his feet. “I knew something didn’t feel right and I should’ve— Anyway. I’m sorry, Jim. I don’t think I’ll make it in time for that cure of yours.”

 

And what was the irony in that? He’d been weeks away from curing his own father when he’d died, before his time. And here was Jim doing fuck all to save his sorry ass and he was checking out before Kirk’s cure was even finished. If that wasn’t the universes way of sorting itself out, McCoy didn’t know what was.

 

Jim still didn’t say anything, so he forged on.

 

“There are a few things I need to take care of and then I’ll get off at the next space dock, get transport home from there. I’d like to die with my feet on the ground if possible,” McCoy said. “Okay?”

 

Jim didn’t speak for a moment, just held his hands folded in his lap. At some point he’d clambered beside McCoy on the biobed but McCoy was fucked to remember when. When Jim Kirk looked up at him, his eyes were wide and blue and almost wet, shining like they were pools of stars.

 

“Is that what you want, Bones?” Jim said.

 

Everything about McCoy stiffened. His shoulders and hands were taut, his head pointed intentionally at the ground. He was afraid if he looked back up and saw Jim sitting so close, so alive, so present, he might do something stupid like kiss him.

 

“What?” McCoy rasped, a moment later.

 

Jim slipped a hand onto his knee and squeezed.

 

“Is that really what you want? To leave the Enterprise and space and go back home to die? Without so much as a fight? The missions barely started, Bones,” Jim said, and he said it like _, We only just began living_.

 

McCoy was going to ask “What?” again, but before he could he felt Jim’s nose pressing against his ear. He refused to move his face so Jim’s nose brushed his cheekbone, his chin, his own nose, before he finally pressed their lips together in a chaste, chapped kiss.

 

When he pulled away, his face hovered inches from McCoy’s and he was smiling that small, crooked smile that he only ever seemed to make when he was about to ask McCoy a favor.

 

“I’m not going to let you die, Bones,” Jim said, his breath crawling over McCoy’s flushed skin. “Do you understand?”

 

McCoy nodded.

 

Jim kissed him again.

 

McCoy’s eyes fluttered shut and when he opened them Jim was pulling the curtain closed behind himself as he flounced from the room.

 

When Christine found him twenty minutes later, McCoy was stretched out on his biobed, inquiring if everything was a dream.

 

+

 

Two weeks later McCoy was put on twenty-four hour surveillance in the sickbay. He couldn’t even protest because he could barely move, and because he spent the better of every day unconscious.

 

And, according to McCoy, it was Jim’s fault he wasn’t allowed to die his slow death in his own quarters, because it was Jim who’d found him asleep on the floor beside his couch and assumed he had up and died, so it was also Jim who was banned from seeing him until the moment McCoy determined his presence was absolutely necessary. Because whether or not Jim had suddenly become a kissing connoisseur, whose favorite dish was malcontent southern doctors, McCoy had really had enough of the hovering and the worrying and the dying.

 

So. Jim was banned. Which was why Uhura was paying him a visit. She started off by telling him exactly how much their captain missed his personal brand of charm. And turned the conversation around to their personal lives faster than McCoy could perform triage.

 

“So, what _is_ going on with you and Jim these days?” Uhura said, waggling her eyebrows.

 

McCoy groaned.

 

Uhura laughed.

 

He’d figured this was coming considering he had acted as Uhura’s fount of love advice in the Academy. Not that Jim had known. Well, he’d known McCoy and Uhura shared two classes and had coffee once in awhile when they could swing it, he’d bugged McCoy enough about Uhura’s first name for that to be made very clear. But if he’d known McCoy was basically Uhura’s go-to when it came to discussing every guy she had dated during their three years of school, Jim may very well have laughed at both of them, repeatedly, and in a variety of locations.

 

After all McCoy didn’t seem like the Love Doctor type, except for that he was a doctor, and had a PhD in psychology, and had been married, and had a kid.

 

All that aside, he had never expected Uhura to be in any way interested in his relationship with Jim. Besides the gossip factor of course.

 

“We haven’t talked about it,” McCoy admitted, which was true. There’d been more kisses, one sloppy blowjob in McCoy’s office, an attempt at sex that led to McCoy being flushed and breathless and bone tired before they’d even really begun, but there hadn’t been a single conversation as to how this was now his life.

 

He wasn’t exactly complaining. After all, he’d been in love with Jim Kirk for the better part of their acquaintance. But it didn’t escape him that maybe Jim was only doing these things because, 1: He knew McCoy wanted them to be done, and, 2: McCoy was dying.

 

He wouldn’t put it past Jim to play the sympathy card.

 

McCoy sighed and repeated, “We really haven’t talked about it.” Then he looked up at Uhura and said, “Can we please talk about something else.”

 

“Fine,” Uhura relented.

 

From there, their conversation shifted from Jim to the rest of the crew, to the ship and a mission they’d recently received to a planet they’d visited once before.

 

When McCoy remembered it as where he’d almost frozen to death in a blizzard he swallowed and sighed.

 

“I feel like I don’t tell you folks enough,” he said, thinking about every time the people on this boat had saved him from the brink of death.

 

Spock carrying him Buttercup style up a cliff, Uhura fighting off an entire village of aliens with nothing but her sharp tongue, Scotty rescuing him from the ship itself while half his arm was burned to a crisp, Pavel saving him from deadly Daffodils, and now, Hikaru, working overtime on a cure to an incurable disease with nothing but his plants and a foggy memory from a separate dimension.

 

“How much I appreciate you saving me.”

 

Uhura squeezed his hand.

 

“You do it again and again. You save all the people on this ship. You all deserve damn medals,” McCoy said, his head lolling on his pillow.

 

“You’re our CMO, Len,” Uhura said. “Your job is literally to keep the rest of us alive. It’s the least we can do to protect you every once and awhile. And besides,” Uhura grinned, her eyes flicking to the crack in McCoy’s privacy curtain, “you keep the captain in line better than any of us ever could. Without you he’d be a nightmare to work with.”

 

“Gee, thanks Lieutenant,” Jim said, pulling the curtain back.

 

“Hey,” McCoy croaked. “You’re—“

 

“Yes, yes, I know. I’m banned from this sickbay until such a moment as I allow my sick CMO to lounge in the comfort of his own room without medical supervision,” Jim said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Well, frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

 

McCoy groaned. He was not up for _Gone with the Wind_ references on a good day, let alone when he was on his deathbed.

 

“That’s my cue to leave,” Uhura said, abandoning McCoy with a swish of her long ponytail. Traitor.

 

After a minute of pointedly ignoring Jim, McCoy glanced over at his captain expecting to see and angry look on Jim’s face. Anything would have been better than the stark pain he saw there. McCoy’s resolve crumpled and he reached for Jim’s hand.

 

Jim gave his fingers a squeeze and took the seat Uhura had vacated.

 

“Sulu’s almost there,” he said, but Jim Kirk had never been very good at lying, especially to McCoy. “He says any day now.”

 

“Sure, Jim,” McCoy said, rubbing his thumb along Jim’s knuckles.

 

He had few regrets in his life. He certainly regretted not being able to save his father, but he’s old enough now to realize that that had been out of his hands from the start. He regretted not being able to spend more time with Joanna, he would never see her graduate high school or college or get married if she did those things. He would never be there for her when life was just being a son of a bitch and she needed a shoulder to lean on.

 

Perhaps it would be poetic to say he regretted not getting to kiss Jim sooner, but he didn’t. What he regretted most, what he would carry with him to the other side, was the regret that he had left this boy alone in the black when he’d promised he’d always stay by his side.

 

He hoped Jim understood, he really did. And as he closed his eyes to the cacophony of his biobed alarms going off and the deep, broken voice in his ear telling him to _stay, stay please_ , he at least knew he was leaving Jim in good hands.

 

(+)

 

When McCoy woke up he was in a different part of the sickbay, the ICU, with the curtain drawn tight around his bed. There were leads connected to his temples and down his chest that he knew were helping him breathe and monitoring his brain function, and an old-fashioned IV was hooked to his left wrist, keeping him equally hydrated and medicated.

 

Jim’s head was in his lap, Jim’s fingers curled around his own. And when McCoy moved, just to get comfortable, even though he tried his best not to wake Jim, Jim woke in a panic.

 

He was smoothing his hands down McCoy’s cheeks and blubbering something that McCoy just couldn’t focus enough to actually understand and then pressing his lips to McCoy’s forehead just as McCoy’s eyes gave out and slipped shut again.

 

+

 

The second time he woke up Joanna was there, so McCoy was sure he was dead.

 

He was back in the main sickbay, but still hooked to three thousand monitors and the curtains were still shut tight around his bed.

 

Joanna was bigger than she’d been last time he saw her. Her arms were crossed under her head and she was resting just on the edge of his bed. Her face was facing him but her pretty eyes were scrunched and puffy even in sleep. Like she’d been crying.

 

McCoy raised his hand and was surprised to find how weighted his body felt, like his veins were filled with lead. Finally, finally, he got it placed just on his baby girl’s soft brown hair and he took to brushing it back from her face with heavy fingers.

 

In her sleep Joanna whimpered and McCoy quieted her, said, “It’s okay. It’s okay sweetheart. It’s all gonna be okay,” until he fell asleep again.

 

+

 

The next time he woke he didn’t really wake at all, just roused enough from sleep to realize there were people talking over him, arguing from the sound of it.

 

“I don’t care what the damn thing says,” one voice yelled, and it was Jim. McCoy would have recognized that voice in a crowd of three million frenetic aliens. “He woke up! His eyes were open, even Joanna said—“

 

“Joanna is eight, Jim,” another voice interrupted.

 

It took McCoy a moment to place that one, because it had been so long since he’d heard it. If she hadn’t been yelling he might not have recognized her at all. But it was Jocelyn. In space, on the Enterprise, yelling at Jim over McCoy’s deathbed.

 

It took McCoy several moments just to convince himself he wasn’t dead after all.

 

“It’s been weeks—“

 

“It’s been _two_ weeks,” Jim said. And someone’s hands were closing over his and McCoy would bet anything they were Jim’s, especially because he couldn’t see Jocelyn holding his hands at a time like this. “He’s waited for me longer than that.”

 

“Jim,” Jocelyn sighed. “I need to take Joanna home.”

 

Something in McCoy’s chest seized at that, or rather, something in his chest _actually_ seized because suddenly alarms were going off and Jim was yelling into his ear and the world was slowly slipping out of McCoy’s fingers for the nth time.

 

+

 

This time, when McCoy woke up, he was counting on Jim being there. Not that he didn’t know Jim had other duties to attend to and couldn’t actually be by his bed every hour of the day, but Jim had been there more often than not and it was a safe bet that he would be there now. Only he wasn’t.

 

As McCoy’s eyes fluttered open the first and only person he saw was Jocelyn, sitting in a chair nearby, legs and arms crossed, as if she had been waiting all this time to give him a lecture.

 

“Leonard,” Jocelyn said, when she recognized that he was awake. “I should get a nurse.”

 

“Jim? Jo?” McCoy said, licking dry lips with a drier tongue. “They here?”

 

“Why?” Jocelyn laughed. “Am I not the best of company?”

 

McCoy sighed. “It’s not that Joce. Miss ‘em.”

 

Jocelyn shook her head. She looked as pretty there beside his bed as she had the day he met her, all those years ago at Ole Miss. Her long red hair was in a twist at the base of her skull and her clear green eyes blinked slowly at him. He was half-surprised not to feel anything as he stared at her, but then again he’d given his heart to that damn foolish captain of his long ago.

 

“You’ve changed, Len,” Jocelyn said, reaching forward to place a hesitant hand on his arm. “Whether it’s the disease that did it or not, there’s a new light in your eyes. You’re different.”

 

“Probably Jim’s fault.” McCoy huffed.

 

Jocelyn laughed. “I’ll go get him Len. Jo’s asleep but I’ll get your captain for you. Just stay awake.”

 

It seemed like ages later that Jim came barreling into McCoy’s room. His hair was askew, his eyes wide and wild, but the moment he spotted McCoy his vision focused. He parked himself in the seat Joce had left and took McCoy’s hands in his own.

 

Then he watched McCoy like he couldn’t figure if he was dreaming or not. After a moment he raised one hand and used it to cup McCoy’s face. His eyes were filled to the brim with tears until he closed them and pressed the crown of his head against McCoy’s shoulder.

 

McCoy couldn’t tell if he was crying or praying or trying to pull his thoughts together. He just let Jim hang on as long as he needed.

 

+

 

Three weeks. Almost four. That’s how long he’d been in a coma. After the first week Sulu had cracked the cure to xenopolycythemia, but even after it had been administered to him he hadn’t woken up. A few days after he’d been cured they’d arrived on Starbase 1, and, per protocol, Joanna and Jocelyn had been called up to say their goodbyes. Only Jim hadn’t let them leave. If they’d left the medical crew would have would have been obliged to take McCoy off life support, but Jim hadn’t let that happen. He’d kept Jocelyn on the Enterprise for nearly two weeks in order to give McCoy time to recover.

 

McCoy hadn’t been able to keep Joce in one place that long when they’d been married.

 

It’s later, once Jo and Joce had beamed back to the planet and McCoy had been released to his quarters, that he laid in the dark and stared at his ceiling, with only the light of the stars through his porthole to see by. He didn’t really think. He’d done too much of that lately.

 

Instead, he waited. Because if he knew anything he knew Jim Kirk would not leave him alone in his quarters for long.

 

An hour and a half later, there was a knock on his door before someone overrode his passcode and let themself into his room. He didn’t have to look up to know it was Jim. So he wasn’t as worried as he should have been when a quiet figure sat on the edge of his bed and reached for his arm.

 

“Bones?” Jim whispered.

 

“Jim.” McCoy whispered back.

 

“You alright?” Jim asked, as he settled on the bed. His shoes hit the floor one by one and he pulled his legs up to sit cross-legged, his knee digging into McCoy’s side.

 

“I’m fine, Jim,” McCoy said.

 

“Oh,” Jim said. He was quiet for a long moment before he inhaled and said, “I can go if you want?”

 

And it was like he was trying to say something he couldn’t find the words for.

 

When McCoy didn’t respond, Jim shifted as if to leave, but McCoy got a hold of his arm and pulled him back.

 

“Stay,” McCoy said.

 

And it was dark but starlight lit the corners of Jim’s mouth as he smiled.

 

“’Kay, Bones. If you say so,” he said, and promptly curled up behind McCoy, limp like McCoy had cut his strings.

 

McCoy couldn’t help but think that five or six years ago, before he’d met this kid, he never would have so willingly allowed anybody to spoon him, to coddle him, to take care of him. But here was James Tiberius Kirk, an anomaly if McCoy had ever met one, and he’d molded McCoy without McCoy even noticing he was being molded, into a marshmallow of a man.

 

And there were probably things they had to talk about, starting with what they were now and what that meant and if this cuddling thing was something Jim wanted to see repeated in the future—and McCoy sure hoped it was because he’d never felt as at home in space as he did in Jim’s arms—but that could wait for the morning. For now they were alive, and they were tired, and the Enterprise was on a long, meandering course toward uncharted territory. They needed their sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional Warnings: Torture including a character being tied to a stake with the threat of burning alive. Being poisoned. Dealing with terminal illness.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed reading!! I might write follow up smut to this, I haven't decided yet.


End file.
